Help ** Need Advice ** Is She Sick?

[chick2good4u]

Dorothy is a 22 week RIR. Last week she layed 1 small egg and 1 large egg. On Monday night she acted ill. Just standing in one place or laying down like she needed to lay. I Tues. morning she was good as new, but in the box there was only a wet gelatenous white substance - no shell or membrane. I thought maybe she ate the egg so I put a fake one in there. All day yesterday she acted fine. Late last night she acted ill again - mainly standing with her eyes half closed and her back end humped up. Twice she let out a thin egg white like substance. This morning she was in the box sitting on the fake egg and a shell-less like one she layed. But it wasn't a full egg - mostly white almost no yolk. It was all gooey and stuck to her. I took her in, washed her off now she is fine grazing with the others and running around. What's going on? There are six, two others are laying nice strong eggs. The other three haven't started laying. They are eatting Layena have free access to oyster shell& grit. I give them a handful of cracked corn & sunflower mix as a treat each day. Any thoughts?

 

[keljonma]

Sounds like your hen is laying shell-less eggs.

There are a number of reasons she may be having this problem.
-She is a pullet who just started laying and her system hasn't worked out the kinks yet.

-She may be eating too much fun stuff (seeds and corn), which may reduce the amount of protein she is actually processing.

-She may not be eating enough calcium for hard shells.

Try giving her some extra calcium - yogurt is good.

 

[chick2good4u]

She has access to all the oyster shell she wants, but I will give her some yogurt. Does it have to be unflavored or flavored ok?

 

[keljonma]

Unflavored (plain) has less sugar, which is a bit better for them. But use what you got.

The important thing is that the yogurt has active cultures for probiotic effect.

 

[chick2good4u]

How long will it take to start helping?

 

[chickaboom]

This is EXACTLY what is happening to my miss prissy. She's a Golden Comet at about the same age.
She was egg bound about 4 days ago. Staying in one spot, eyes half closed, wouldn't feed, back humped up.
I helped her with some vaseline in the vent and about 30m later she passed 2 eggs, both gelatinous.
Now every day since then,, we've either had gelatinous orbs or paper thin shells.

I too will give her some yogurt. I didn't know that!